a/n - Thanks for all the wonderful comments. A couple of you have asked about Abby's age and how I determined it for this story. This is season seven, we know that at the beginning of season one, Tony was celebrating his second anniversary at NCIS. Abby was in charge of the lab already when he arrived, and it wasn't a new thing. Just from that, we know that she's been there at least ten years, probably closer to eleven or twelve. She has her Master's degree and there's been no mention of her finishing high school early, so that's a minimum of six years, starting at the age of eighteen or nineteen. It doesn't matter how brilliant she is, NCIS would not have hired her to run the lab at their headquarters without some job experience after college, so there's another year, minimum, but probably closer to two or three.

Also, remember the episode with the Marine that got eaten by a bear? Abby was all mad at Gibbs because he was out on a search party to find the Marine's missing girlfriend. When he came back, she 'forgave' him for forgetting her birthday. He told her that he didn't forget her birthday, and he remembered how old she was. That made her nervous and she told him he didn't have to remember that part.

Honestly, the actress is now 40, and it's a pet peeve of mine that Hollywood assumes that characters can't be beautiful and interesting after they hit 40. Don't get me started on how young they've made Ziva now. According to new-canon she was a college grad and a trained Mossad agent by the time she was 16 to be the age she is now.

Rant over :) Enjoy the chapter.

Abby straightened her shoulders as she looked directly at Tim's sister. "I've done a lot of stupid things, but the dumbest thing I ever did was to let Tim walk out of my life."

"I thought you were friends until this happened." Rebecca looked past Abby to see an almost unreadable expression on Tim's face. Luckily the years had not dampened her ability to read her little brother. "He was in love with you."

Abby nodded and dropped her head back down, so she didn't see the silent exchange between siblings. The night before, Sarah had gently teased, but Rebecca could see the remnants of the broken heart he hid so well. Now the pain was no longer hidden as he watched her confession. "When we met it was on a case down in Norfolk, so it wasn't face to face. He was smart and funny and I liked working with him. I mean the team we had then was great, and I loved them all, but Tim understood the science and he got me. He got me." Abby thumped her chest as she explained their connection. "He was the one person I could ramble on about slug enzymes or using electrical fields to extract contaminated DNA and he would understand."

"So, you started dating?"

"He drove up from Norfolk a couple of times to help on some cases and we'd have lunch together, sometimes he'd stay over rather than driving back. It was fun, it was casual." Abby sniffed again and wiped her nose. "People would think we didn't have that much in common, I mean, look at us. We're at opposite ends of the spectrum, but it worked."

Sarah shifted around to see Abby better. "You wanted to keep it casual, and he wanted more, right?"

"Yes... no... deep down I wanted more, too, but I knew it wouldn't work, so I broke it off."

"Because you're a Goth, and he's too white bread for you?"

Rebecca's angry words made her wince, but Abby knew she was right. "I was so afraid that I was going to get trapped in his normal world and then to top it off, I found out his parents were going to be in town and he didn't say anything about it to me. I thought he was ashamed of me, that I wasn't good enough to be around his family." Abby looked over her shoulder at Tim before returning to plead her case to Rebecca. "I didn't know anything about your family, I never dreamed... I mean, Tim's so normal..."

With a sad fascination, Rebecca started to understand. "It must have been hard, being drawn to a man that represented everything you didn't want to become."

Abby was crying again. "I was okay with it until... until Ari shot Kate."

"Kate?" Rebecca looked up in time to see a fresh wave of pain cross Tim's face. It was heartbreaking to her just how much of her brother's life she had missed.

Tim filled in the blanks softly from the far side of the room. "Kate was a member of our team. She was killed by a sniper my first year on the team. I was his first target, then when he couldn't get me he went after Kate."

Rebecca went silent and pale at this casual mention of how dangerous her kid brother's life had become.

Not noticing the exchange, Abby continued. "I kept bouncing back and forth between wanting him back and scared of being trapped in suburbia. Being scared makes me angry, so then I'd do something stupid and mean to him."

"Then you'd feel guilty about the way you treated him and the cycle would start all over again." Rebecca shook her head. "Abby, this isn't healthy behavior."

"I know, and I'm so sorry Sarah got caught up in it."

"Abby, I want to know something, and I want a totally honest answer, so don't say anything right away." Sarah pulled away from her mother and sat ramrod straight, clutching her hands together. Abby realized how serious the question was going to be and also visibly pulled herself together.

"Okay, what do you want to know?"

"That night in the club, when you handed me over to Roger, what end of the pendulum were you at? Were you really wanting my bro... my uncle back, or had you already moved on to wanting to hurt him?"

---NCIS---

Gibbs leaned back in his chair, not liking what he had to do next. "Phillip McGee has been tracking Becky all these years. He flew into DC last night because he knew she was here."

"What?" His hand trembled as he rubbed his mouth. "Are you saying he's been stalking my wife since she was a teenager?"

"It looks that way."

"But why? I mean, God knows, he didn't want her around anymore. Hell, he transferred to a different base just days after he sent Becky away. He came back often enough to make sure my father wasn't going to get brave and report him to children services, but he never spoke to Becky."

Gibbs studied his coffee for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "I think he wanted to see her fail. He was so obsessed with always being right that he needed to see her fall apart without him."

"But she didn't fall apart. I mean, sure she was a mess when she first came to live with us, but she was mourning our dead child. We both were, but then we built ourselves a new life." Being a doctor who traveled the world, from one crisis zone to another gave Richard an understanding of stressed and angry individuals. "It probably made him furious to see us stay together, and fulfill our dreams without his help."

Gibbs gave a snort. "Without a doubt, it pissed him off."

"And Tim and Sarah bore the brunt of it." Richard finished what Gibbs didn't say.

"Well, Tim did. He made protecting Sarah an art form." Gibbs looked pensive as he thought about it, wondering how much of the timidness he'd seen in the young man those first few years was a result of his upbringing and how much was a conditioned reaction to a potentially abusive authority figure. He hoped it was the former and not the latter. The possibility that he ever reminded the young man of his father turned Gibbs' stomach.

Before Gibbs could voice his concerns, pounding feet could be heard coming towards the conference room. Tony burst through the door, not embarrassed at all about interrupting. "Metro just called. The prison transport crashed and Roger Harris escaped."

"What?" Gibbs was instantly on his feet, Richard only a step behind him. Vance was entering MTAC and held the door open for them, ignoring the fact that they had a civilian with them. "What do we know so far?"

Ziva was leaning over one of the techs, watching the screen he was monitoring. "It happened less than a mile from I-395. Two guards and one prisoner were killed when the van rolled over. The third guard is missing and presumed to be a hostage. One of the escapees has already been picked up just west of Bailey's Crossroads."

"Let's hope that all of them were headed south, then." Tony was staring at the map up on the main screen as Gibbs and Richard joined him. "The quickest way out of the Metro area from where they overpowered the guards would be south on the I-395."

Director Vance was already on the phone with the state authorities in the area. Covering the mouthpiece, he turned to assure Richard Harper that everything was under control. "Virginia State Troopers are setting up road blocks right now. With any luck, all of the escapees will be back in custody within the hour."

Richard might have been listening to Vance, but he was watching Gibbs, who looked anything but convinced. "What is it?"

Instead of answering right away, Gibbs turned to Ziva. "Check every crime, every disturbance within ten miles of the accident site."

Needing an answer, Richard repeated himself. "What is it?"

"My gut is telling me that this is too easy. Something's not adding up right."

---NCIS---

"Excuse me, ma'am?"

The elderly woman looked up from tending the small containers she had on her patio. It was still too cold to have the plants outside continuously, but every morning she took them out for an hour to harden them up and prepare them to transplant in the early Spring. It was the reason she had a ground floor apartment, even if her children worried about her safety. The sun was in back of her visitor, but she could see enough of him to tell that he was wearing a uniform and carried a clipboard. "Yes, can I help you, officer?"

The uniformed man smiled. "I need to have Agent McGee sign some papers for a case we worked last week, but his agency forgot to tell me which apartment is his."

"Well, what do you expect of bureaucrats?" She held her hand out and the officer helped her to her feet. "Agent McGee moved a few months ago, so they probably would have given you the wrong address if they'd remembered to tell you."

"He and his sister are no longer here?"

"Oh, no, they're still here. He just moved into a larger apartment. I was so glad; I feel so much safer with an armed agent in the complex, even if his dog likes to bark at Tiger, don't you agree?"

He looked at the ancient feline sleeping on a pillow by the door. "Absolutely, now the apartment number?"

"Of course. He's over there, in Building C. The apartment number would be..." She closed her eyes as she started counting. She knew the lay-out of the building and she knew which apartment housed the McGee's, "number fourteen. That should be it. He's on the third floor, and it's the apartment to the right of the stairs."

"Thank you, ma'am." He briskly moved in the direction she had pointed. She watched until he moved out of view, past the large holly bush, before turning her attention to the cat. "That poor fellow must not be married, Tiger. No self-respecting wife would let her husband go to work in pants that ill-fitting. Now, how did he know Agent McGee's sister moved in with him?" She looked down at her watch. "It's time for my show to start. Come along, Tiger, I'll get you a nice saucer of cream."

---NCIS---

Abby forced herself to stay calm, looking up at the ceiling as she blinked back more tears. "When I first asked you to go with me to the club, I had this fantasy that if you and Roger hit it off, then the four of us could double date. If we did that, then I could get Tim to fall back in love with me." She heard both the groan from Tim, and the sound of disapproval from Rebecca, but pressed on.

"The real truth is that I panicked the second I introduced you. That's why I hid in the bathroom. I had this vision of me as a soccer mom, baking cupcakes and I ran. I never dreamed he would hurt you." Abby turned her attention to Rebecca. "Believe me, if I had thought he was capable of that, I wouldn't have let him near Sarah." Abby dropped her head down as she made her last confession. "I didn't hit the mad stage until later. I... I convinced myself that everything was fine and that we were going to have that double date. I even bought four tickets to a concert Roger and I wanted to go to." Abby's words trailed off as she paled. "That was Roger's idea. He knew what he'd done, but he still talked about how much fun he had and..."

Sarah sobbed, stopping Abby cold as she realized what she had said to the young woman still recovering from Roger's brutality.

"I'm sorry, that was... insensitive. It's still hard to understand sometimes how much I let him influence me. I'm trying be more aware of when I'm being influenced or when my reactions are... inappropriate, but it's hard. I didn't want to see how... far... I was willing to go to be the center of attention."

Rebecca was rubbing Sarah's back as she watched Abby struggle to put her feelings into words. Her phrasing gave Rebecca a clue as to just how Abby was trying to be more aware. "Abby, I have a question, but this time, I'm not going to insist that you answer, because it's very personal, and I will understand if you're not comfortable with talking to a complete stranger."

Wide-eyed, Abby sat up straight and waited for the question.

"From some of the things you've said about yourself, I'm guessing that you are in therapy. Is that true?" Abby nodded after only the slightest hesitation, so Rebecca continued. "Because of what happened?" A second nod. "Are you being forced to go?"

This time there was a nod, then a shake with a shoulder shrug thrown in for good measure before Abby started talking. The fact that it took so long before she could speak, told Tim that she was serious, and he moved closer to watch her expression as she talked.

"At first I was mad because the Director told me it was mandatory and I'd be suspended if I missed even one session. I spent the first appointment ranting about everyone and everything. I was so busy being mad, that I even forgot the session was being taped. The next week, my therapist made me listen to some recording. I told her how childish and selfish the people on her tapes were, and that she should concentrate on fixing them and not me."

"And..." Rebecca wasn't an impatient woman normally, but she was near the end of her rope.

Abby's voice was so low, the others had a hard time hearing her. "It was me. My therapist had other people record what I had said, so I could hear it in other voices and really listen. I didn't like it. I didn't like what I've been becoming, so now I go every week no matter what."

---NCIS---

"Jeffries, talk to me." Gibbs had one of the technicians tie his phone into the speakers so they could all hear the Metro detective.

I'm at the scene of the accident with the jail administrator, Gibbs. The dead prisoner isn't a prisoner, he's one of the guards.

"Damn it! You're telling me that one of the escaped prisoners is dressed as a guard? Which one?"

Looking at their rap sheets, there's only one of them with the brains to pull this off.

"Harris."

Harris.

"Gibbs, a car was stolen from a parking lot only a mile from the accident." Interrupting them, Ziva looked up from the BOLO's she was reading. "It has a Lojack device on it."

"Has it been located?" Vance raised his voice enough to be heard both in MTAC and over the speaker phone.

Ziva was hurriedly skimming the report before she looked up, a horrified expression on her face. "Silver Spring, the car is only blocks from McGee's apartment."

Tony already had his cell to his ear. "Come on, come on, pick up the phone, McGee." Gibbs didn't have to order his team to gear up, they almost beat him to the parking garage. Tony and Ziva were in one car, with Ziva driving and Richard jumped in the other car with Gibbs.

"That's my family out there, I'm going with you, end of discussion."